Screenshot Marathon SE
Day 1 We’ve been busy preparing everything for Gamescom, but still: Four weeks is a long time without any updates, so we’re planning to make up for it. We have added a lot to Mari0: Special Edition that we have not shown yet, so that’s a perfect opportunity for another screenshot marathon! Everyday for a few weeks, we’ll show a fancy screenshot or gif of something new in SE. Pre-placed Portals Just like in Portal, it’s now possible for map creators to place the player’s or even independent portals. These allow input from buttons or anything to make them appear. Using a square wave input (oh yeah, those are new too) and 3 portal entities, I created an automated shoot-mario-up machine. Having a lot of independent portal pairs to place opens up a lot of possibilities, like levels that play themselves. Day 2 Configurable Faithplates Faithplates in the old Mari0 were pretty limited, so I upraded them using the new rightclick menus (which I will highlight later) to have configurable strength and direction. They also take an input now and you can easily see the plate’s trajectory! Random thought of the day: We just watched the opening ceremony for the olympic games 2012. The part with the industry was awesome. Day 3 Custom Characters Just like with hats, you’ll be able to create custom characters for use in game. These will support any number of walk and jump frames, as well as any number of customizable colors like the original Mario. Chell has 4 colors for example. Random thought of the day: There’s also a certain light-blue mythical creature as a character, but it isn’t in the gif. Day 4 Portal Gun Pedestal You can define on a map basis just how much portal gun the player has. They can start with either none, the blue, the orange or the fully powered portal gun, and then pick up an upgrade during the level. In connection with the Day 1 preset portals, you can create some single portal puzzles like they’re found early in Portal and Portal 2. Random thought of the day: There’s a lot of new SE features shown in the gif actually. Day 5 Region Trigger Did that door just open all on its own? Does the door have eyes? Do the hills? Now you can link everything you ever wanted and much more to the region trigger tool that will be in Mari0 SE. Bonus points for laser deathtraps. Random thought of the day: You don’t actually get bonus points for deathtraps, laser or not. Day 6 Text Entity Be the next Wheatley and write “TEST” all over your map with the new text entities. Their color and text is fully customizable and they even take an input. In the above pic, I used 2 square waves and a bunch of gates to animate a 4-step clock. Also a XOR gate for the outline. You can hide the gates if you want, there’s an option for that. Day 9 Offscreen markers Being lost offscreen with no idea where you are is quite a nuisance in a local multiplayer game. To prevent that, SE has offscreen markers, so your comrades will know where exactly they are. The same markers will also be used in online multiplayer. A small notice: Gamescom preparations are taking up a lot of free time, which is already pretty sparse. Thus, SE marathon updates won’t be made on a consistent pace - this post might even be the last of the current run. No reason to fret for the future of Mari0, though! Good things come to those who wait.